Blowin' in the Wind

I know that we had to be prepared, but after today's "storm", Irene was the most overhyped Hurricane ever.  On Friday, as I was working my half day from home, I got three phone calls from my dad, and finally decided maybe it was a good idea to go to Associated for some groceries.  But instead of buying water and non-perishables, I thought it was more critical to buy ice cream, yogurt, and swiss cheese (oh and Diet Coke and Sprite Zero.)  The supermarket was like a zoo, you'd think we'd be trapped for weeks the way people were stocking up.  Anyway, they didn't have the chips I wanted, so I dropped the bags off at home and headed back out to Trade Fair.  I did then to decide to buy a 3 liter bottle of water amongst the panic, the chips (though still not the ones I wanted - apparently there is a shortage of Baked Tostitos Scoops during hurricane season), and some more totally unnecessary perishable items.  In the evening, Dave didn't feel so hot so we went to C Town to buy orange juice (we have 3 supermarkets within a 3 block radius in case you were wondering.)  The lines were absolutely insane again so we gave up.

Yesterday morning we were still awaiting the storm, which wasn't coming until the evening now, so we decided to take a walk around 11 am.  Realizing we only had one dinky flashlight, we thought it might be a good idea to see what the local 99 cent stores still had in stock.  We bought some more batteries, water, and lighters (we have about 75 candles thanks to a bag of tealights and the fact that my mother-in-law now works for a candle company), but had no luck finding a battery-powered radio.  After coming home, we did actually realize that our alarm clock takes batteries (duhhh), so we headed back out and bought a 9V.  It had started raining lightly at this point, but the 99 Cent stores all still had long lines of people buying duct tape and saying "I can't believe you don't have any flashlights left??"  The storm was coming in a few hours, I mean really.

We anxiously awaited this pain in the ass by playing Xbox games (ilomilo, The Beatles: Rock Band (I still have to write that out properly), some make-your-own-Bobblehead-that-looks-nothing-like-you game on Kinect labs), Scattergories, cooked, did my nails, tweezed my eyebrows, and watched Party Down.  I also read two magazines from my tremendous pile and finished The Hunger Games (disappointment, sorry peeps.)  It had been raining at a normal level until the middle of the night when I heard it coming down hard. Then this morning it was seriously like nothing?!?  When Dave and I headed out to take a walk around 1:30 pm today, the ground was actually dry!!  We went up to 30th, had brunch (all of the brunch places were open and packed), and walked back.  It's still a bit windy and the sky is gray/grey? but the temperature is pleasant. There were some fallen branches but nothing crazy.  Here are a few photos of the most extensive damage we saw -

Not bad at all

Unless you own this car

I like the effort Duane, you've finally impressed me

I HAD to get Parmesan cheese (we made bolognese and chicken parm this weekend so obviously it was necessary.)  This was the bread aisle in C Town today.

There were leftover Toast R Cakes which I just still can't believe.

Anyway, I guess I should give a shout out to the Earthquake as well. I had my headphones on when that started, so I couldn't hear people discussing anything, and I literally thought the skin on my butt was twitching. After about ten seconds of that I got up and everybody was like "Uh, do you feel that?" I made the smart decision to switch from heels to flip flops, grab my bag, and head to our safety point on the floor. Most of us decided to go down the 80 flights of steps (which I actually did once before when I worked on the 41st floor during the blackout.) Me and my jelly legs got to go home after that, so thank you Earthquake! Why Irene couldn't show up on a weekday, and instead faked us out during my only Fire Island weekend which was totally non-refundable, is still beyond me.

So, I started reading books again, yeah! I also joined a book club in which we just discussed "Gun, With Occasional Music", and I hated it. Next, I'm going to read the book I suggested for the September meeting but lost in the vote which is Rob Sheffield's "Talking to Girls About Duran Duran."  Now that I have finally started using my eReader, I think the thing is absolutely amazing.  And, I took out the latest book out from the Queens library digitally - it simply expires after 21 days and wipes from the device, so easy!!  I also need to read "Super Sad True Love Story" as that's next for the book club, and the second book in The Hunger Games trilogy even though I'm still disappointed by the first.  Where was all this sexual tension I kept hearing about???  Unless it's in books two and three, the Twilight series blows these out of the water.

Pumped Up Kicks

I'm finally trying out Spotify.  I don't understand how it works yet, though it looks fairly straightforward with a purty interface.  So far I've been listening to Ellie Goulding and the whole album has been playing with a few ads.  What's the difference between this and the version you pay for?

I've been stuck in the house all day because of the pouring rain.  One thing I did was trash a garbage bag full of clothes.  Despite having only worn most of these shirts during the 2001-2003 Sutton Place era, they were hard to part with (what if I one day suddenly had the desire to wear them again?)  On the plus side, there is a TON of space in the closet now.

Hey, did you hear that The Stills broke up?  Too bad.

I've been watching more Locked Up Abroads lately as well (best show ever.)  During the commercial break while I was tensely awaiting the Brooklyn teenager's sentence for trying to smuggle heroin out of Colombia, I saw an ad for a show called Break Out. Apparently, its reenactments of jail breaks!!  I am so shocked at how amazing the National Geographic channel is, and I haven't even watched anything about nature yet.

Check out this wack-a-doodle bike I saw in LIC:

A few weeks ago Dave and I went to see Man U at Red Bulls arena. On the first day we got to see their practice which was awesome because it was first come first served and no one was there, so we got to sit in the third row in the middle.  Also, all of the players were out doing their Rockette-like drills and played a mock game.

In case you didn't know, Michael Owen is still as gorgeous as ever.

I took a photo with him back in the day.

Also, here's a quick video of the team walking past the crowd.

The second day they played the MLS All-Stars and I got to see David Beckham do his thing.   Chicharito and Giggs didn't play, nor did Landon Donovan.  I figure for a $90 ticket, I surely am owed approximately a $15 refund.

So, I've got 6 weddings to go to this year.  And that means a lot of connected events.  I'm not posting bachelorette party photos directly on Facebook, so instead I'll post them indirectly on Facebook through my blog.

For Rachel's bachelorette we went to the wineries.  We stayed at her friends' house in Jamesport which had a tennis court, a pool, a ping pong table, a giant Elvis statue(?), and it overlooked the Long Island Sound.  In other words, it was kind of amazing.

We took a limo from winery to winery.

Wine junkies

Go Rachel Go!

Back at the house we decorated penis cookies.  In case you were wondering, there will be more penis cookie decorating, penis-shaped dessert, and penis-destruction to come in this blog post.

Whee!

Hi

I'm all shook up

The next bach party was the following weekend in the Hamptons for Erica.  We stayed in another amazing house for this one.

Every good hen do starts off with a fly swatter fight.

Jackie T. had the biggest shoes I've ever seen.

Yay penis straws!

And penis cake! (Not creamy inside.)

There was also a jacuzzi on the left and the canal behind the pool, plus two outdoor decks and an entire outdoor kitchen.  My back got nice and toasty while laying out (aka bright red and blister-popping good.)

Not sure who that guy is?

Julie's bachelorette was in the city.  We took a striptease class and I'm definitely not posting any photos of that.  Before going out for the night, we destroyed a penis pinata.

Then there was some dancing on the pole action (but not what we learned in the striptease class.)

Speaking of stripping, at the risk of sounding like a grandma, I absolutely cannot believe what girls wear out to clubs these days. On one pole, a girl was thrusting against it like her life depended on it, with some guy ramming his crotch into her from behind (clothed, but still totally unnecessary.) The other pole was much worse - some chick in a skintight black dress was also doing the thrust, with less force but enough so that her dress shifted all the way up to her waist!!  Her friend told her to pull it down, and she barely did, then kept dancing with it up.  Some guy saw me and Vicki hysterical (I'm talking projectile tears flying off our faces from laughing so much), that he stopped me just to say "DO YOU SEE THAT GIRL'S ASS??"  Yes, yes I most certainly did.  When I was going to bars at that age we wore jeans and a tank top and still managed to pull guys while keeping our dignity in tact and our asses covered.  I met Dave in a turtleneck and bellbottoms, I mean are these 2011 non-outfits really a necessity??

Non-hos at da club

Afterwards we got pizza and Julie's sister Erica was taking photos of all of the ingredients, as if it was this new food phenomenon.  The guys who worked there were really confused but it was funny if you were drunk like us.

Glenna's bachelorette party was on a Thursday night and I had work the next day, so naturally I participated in the open bar and flip cup portions of the night.

I probably should have stopped playing after the tenth game or so. 

Her sister had a bag of little goodies for everyone like giant gem rings, rings with doggies on them, and butterfly barrettes.  The next morning I woke up with a full face of make up and all of the accessories on my fingers and hair, plus I was still drunk, so work was awesome that day.

The final bachelorette party of the summer was Jenn's.  This one started off with our car breaking down right as we crossed into Delaware after having driven for 3 hours.  This is us eating KFC in front the gas station while we were trying to figure out a plan for not being stranded in the middle of nowhere.  

We wanted to get 40s to complete the scene but they don't sell beer at gas stations in Delaware (BOO.)

Cheap gas and girls on a rock in the 'ware

Long story short, after about an hour trying to figure out how the hell to get out of New Castle, DE, a random AAA truck showed up and saved the day.  This guy put our car on the flatbed and drove the 5 of us an hour and a half to the house at 1 am which was kind of a miracle.

Then we made penis cookies.

I still don't know why Kristine put the food coloring pen in her mouth but I'm going to go out on a limb and say it was an accident.

The weekend was pretty standard.  A couple of people fell on the floor in the bar, a few puked, one of my friends came home minus her dress (you know who you are), I almost got our asses kicked by another group of girls because of my big drunk mouth, there was one door-slamming-in-the-eye incident thanks to the bouncer, a dance party on the counter with the bachelor party we'd met at the bar (while the bachelorette slept on the couch right in the middle of it), random guys showing up and fighting in our house, and some girls dissing us by saying "What are you, 28??"  Ha, we wish.

On the last day, four of the girls had to go an hour south into Maryland to pick up the now-fixed car.  The rest of us made two trips in the heatwave to the next town over to return all of the bikes we'd rented during the week.  The logistics of the operation forced Ilyssa to sit in a car seat for one of the rides back to the house.

This was Operation Deflate Tubes Before the Psycho Cleaning Woman Comes Back.

By the way, what the hell is this electric slide dance that everyone in the bar was doing?  I was so boggled that I took a video.

Current Music: Beyonce - Best Thing I Never Had

Tick Tick Boom

I recently went to Arkansas for a work trip.

When we arrived on a Monday evening (I was with four other girls), we found out that almost everyone else from our group was transferred from our overbooked hotel (The Peabody) to smoking rooms in the dumpy Hilton.  As we arrived so late, they sucked it up and gave our party two ginormous dual floor suites, and one regular room that two of us had to share (yes, I was in that one.)  We headed out to meet our coworkers in hoppin' downtown Little Rock with a warning from a coworker who was already out that she got scared by a midget on the street??  So on our way to the bar, we saw these guys, and low and behold, it wasn't not just one midget but a gang of them who looked like wrestlers (well, three to be precise along with some of their 6 ft tall friends.)  They had tattoos, one was wearing a sombrero, and frankly, I thought they were going to beat us up.  Not wanting to obviously look scared and cross the street, we walked past them remaining cool and collected, until one of them yelled and I caved with a slight jump (it could have been much worse if I was not forewarned.)  We made it to the bar in one piece where the dozens of drafts were on $3 special and they were actually playing The Libertines, so all in all Little Rock wasn't too terrible on a Monday night.

Lil' Rock

The next morning we had to be out of the hotel early, so unfortunately we missed The Peabody's "duck walk."  According to the concierge, every morning at 11 am, they roll out a red carpet and ducks march down it and up into the fountain in the lobby in a grand ceremony.  You can enjoy the rooftop view of mallards made of pebbles from my hotel room instead.

We headed to the North Little Rock plant to see how cosmetics are assembled (eye shadows, foundations, and mascaras, oh my!)  In all seriousness, it was pretty amazing to see the assembly lines.  What was uncool was my required outfit - steel-toe boots, lab coat, hairnet, and goggles.  I looked like Laverne and Shirley (I'm sad to report I did not take a photo.)

(Does anyone want to be this for Halloween by the way??  Email me if interested.)

The next stop on the itinerary was most critical, a trip to the liquor store.  To put this in perspective, the place we were heading to for the remainder of the week was in a DRY COUNTY.  As in, they do not sell liquor in the county.  None.  No alcohol.  Not available.  You can bring it in but you can't acquire it.  Did you even know those existed???  I digress.  So, as I was figuring out what drinks to buy with my coworkers, it suddenly dawned on someone that we could actually expense the drinks (well, I'll actually find out if this is the case next week, eek.)  That was goodbye Georgi, hello Grey Goose! We headed to Wal-Mart next to stock up on a shit-ton of junk food which I proceeded to eat all week.  I'd have to say that the best thing that emerged from this trip on a personal level is that I now like beef jerky (thanks AK!)

The trip truly began when we drove out to our dry county to get our team building exercises on.  Upon arrival, deep in the woods, we found our bunks and I was so happy to see that everything was clean and not buggy at all.  All of the women shared a bunk, and the bathrooms were really nice as well.  We had a patio area outside with a place for a bonfire, and the main lodge is where we had our indoor sessions.  It was basically like summer camp but you could drink and get paid for it.

The bunks and main lodge

The pond outside of our bunk

Ladies' bunk

The bathroom was actually great

The fridge was not fully stocked at this point

Nor was the cooler

As you could imagine, for most of the week we did activities that demonstrated how embarrassingly poor we were at communicating with each other, and that we couldn't build a bridge using X amount of boards to save our lives (seriously, if we were in a real flood situation, all 18 of us would have been dead.)  But we learned from it, and grew as people and all that good stuff and now I like my coworkers, etc etc the end.

One thing I should mention is that I knew there was going to be something heights-involved during the week, because really, how could there not be?  I made a promise to myself that I would do whatever it was no matter how scary it looked - when I was in Teen Council when I was 17, we went to Greenkill (guys, I found the website!!) in upstate NY and did this activity where we had to walk high above the ground across a rope from tree to tree and I was scared, cried, and then didn't do it while everyone else did.  I did NOT want to do that again, and more importantly, I did NOT want to embarrass myself in front of my new coworkers, so there was no way in hell I wasn't doing the activity.

So, on the first full day, before we even knew what was planned, the guide asked us if we'd commit to doing the upcoming task as a team, and we all agreed, so it was officially confirmed that I was up shit's creek (if we had to eat rats and their poop, I was going to do it purely out of principle.)  We headed a bit further through the woods in silence, as I contemplated my impending death, and arrived to find a skinny platform jutting out of a tree with a trapeze at the end...A FUCKING TRAPEZE!  I tried to calm down for a minute, thinking it's not a big deal, people here are actually excited to do this, plus, maybe it looks easier than the Teen Council thing?  Well, next, the guide walked us around the different areas where we'd be stationed for holding the ropes for our colleagues and explained exactly what each person had to do.  I really concentrated so hard to keep from panicking that apparently my composure was actually completely okay.  It was so okay that when the guide said that the most scared person should go first because of reasons xyandz (and my eyes started tearing and I was looking away from everyone so to not be called out), that another girl who was apparently more panicked was spotted immediately by the group. I was so worried about myself that I didn't even see the other girl crying and she was like 3 feet away from me!  Anyhoo, I really thought that I would go second and not delay my execution as long as I saw her go first, and after some hesitation she did go.  And by go, this is what we had to do -
- Have colleagues attach two ropes to you through a chest and a waist harness
- Climb a ladder that leaned against a tree about 8 ft high
- Proceed to climb staples up the tree to 40 ft total height (did I mention I'm scared of heights??)
- Step onto platform and unlatch one of the ropes, send it back down
- Turn around, walk out to the end of the 18 ft platform (platform is 1.5 ft wide)
- Make sure toes are over edge of platform
- Cry (optional)
- Jump off platform to trapeze that is 8 ft away and positioned higher than your head, so that unless you are Stretch Armstrong, you are basically going to miss the trapeze
- Trust that your colleagues will brake the rope properly?!

When the girl before me was up on the platform she was crying and panicking A LOT.  So much so, that when I was doing my helpful teammate thing below, I started crying out of fear (but again luckily no one noticed.)  She finally did the jump and yes, she survived (as has everyone who has done this activity for the past 17 years), and without hesitation I said I'd go next.  I raced to the top of the tree thinking I just wanted to get it over with and that I should really act like a big girl; I got to the top, sent down rope #1 (doing an excellent job at Plinko with the staples totally by accident), then turned around to set off down the platform.  That's when I started crying.  A LOT.  I think all in all it took me less than 5 minutes to go from the ground to the trapeze jump, but in the end, after quite a lot of "I'll jump in a minute"s, I closed my eyes and (think) I tried for the trapeze.  The drop took literally a second; it really seemed like so not a big deal when it was over.  And to be honest, I quite enjoyed it once I was hanging in mid-air because at least there was a breeze in the 97 degree heat. So, that was my big jump.

Speaking of the heat, I failed to mention my daytime ensemble. We'd been warned that there were ticks in this area, and that I was going to get quite friendly with my coworkers as we'd be checking each other all over for them.  I was not planning on having any creature on me - tick, coworker, or otherwise, so I made sure to dress accordingly.  In addition to spraying 100% Deet all over me and my bag, I wore a long-sleeved shirt tucked into long pants, with socks pulled over my pants, and Timberlands I found in the back of my old closet in my parents' house from high school (I knew I saved them for a reason.)  Needless to say, I looked like a classic 1994 wanna-be-cool looking idiot.  After jumping off the platform, I think that I actually lost my fear of ticks (although, my assignment on the last day kept me in the lodge in air conditioning drinking beer while 3/4 of the group went deeper into the woods which was the main tick day so don't go by my example.)  And I didn't even come home with a mosquito bite!  I was on the lookout all week though - the weekend before my trip, I had gone to Rachel's bachelorette party in Jamesport, Long Island, and on the fridge was a handy dandy tick chart.  Robyn kindly took a photo and sent it to me which I printed out on a large piece of paper for the trip.

Handy dandy tick chart

The home cooked food was pretty amazing - chocolate cake, ribs, biscuits with gravy, cinnamon buns, pink lemonade.  I could go on but this is making me hungry.

It really was a great trip (I'm not going to get into the hard core assignments of the week, except for the night where we had to watch Remember the Titans and dissect it the next day - tough stuff), plus I got out of going to the office for a week.  In summation, I would avoid Arkansas if you are afraid of ticks and midget gangs, but if you need convincing that you like beef jerky then I think it's the place for you.

Happiness in Magazines?

Yes, it is in fact Friday.  Though instead of posting THAT song to the social network of your choice, why not listen to one of these classics instead?

The Cure - Friday I'm in Love
Shed Seven - She Left Me On Friday
The Beatles - 8 Days a Week
Boy Kill Boy - Friday Friday
Lily Allen - Friday Night

My friend Ana decided to book a trip to Thailand at the last minute and she's documenting her travels at The Adventures of IndiANA Rodrigo.  Go follow her!  A few wise words to her from personal experience -

• Beware of flying cockroaches
• Drink lots of fruit smoothies
• Get your nails did as it's dirt cheap
• Go for the oil massage, it's so much better than the Thai one

By the way, I got the capital of Vietnam wrong at trivia, it's Hanoi, not Ho Chi Minh City.  Shows how much I paid attention while I was there.

Sooo, I totally got a job!  A good job too!  My first week is finished (and I was home before 6 pm every day, jealous much?)  So far so good, just lots to learn.  And don't even get me started on the company store, I have heart palpitations every time I think about it. FYI, I'm working at a cosmetics company (because I'm worth it if ya catch my drift.)

I received flowers from my boss on my first day, how nice is that?? On top of that, Dave's parents were visiting with a back-to-back visit by Jay, both of whom got us flowers. Our apartment smells rather fragrant at the moment and looks quite pretty as well.

In other non-important news, I'm drowning in magazines (you'd think I would have learned my lesson from the Time debacle, but nevertheless...)

I'd been receiving Rolling Stone for the past few months and couldn't figure out who subscribed me.  I thought it was either a gift or a random promotion (a bit odd considering I'd dropped their subscription years ago as I couldn't stand most of their political views.)  Well, I get the dumbass award for this one - turns out I resubscribed myself and lost all memory of having done so.  To be fair, they never billed me and, um, I was probably so busy the past few months that I simply forgot I'd done it.  Anyhoo, I went to unsubscribe (the annual fee is only $20 but I just didn't want it due to my piled up backlog) and they actually pulled a "will you continue subscribing if we offer you 26 issues/year for only $10?"  Well, it worked.  If everyone knew they did this can you imagine how much money they'd lose??

I recently bought a Time Out NY subscription on Groupon - weekly issues for a year for only $10 (oh Groupon how I love thee.)  I already skipped last week's issue and am on track to miss all of this week's events as well.  So all in all a great purchase.

On top of that, I just started receiving Glamour, another magazine I really couldn't care less about - the last article I read was titled "Hey Guys, Let's Talk Sexting!"  Really?  People do that so much that it gets a dedicated article?  Wow, I guess I'm old (or just not so Glamorous.)  I found out that my United miles were about to expire, and I had so few that it was down to redeeming for two $25 Restaurant.com certificates and a magazine subscription.  With options like Cigar Aficionado and Diabetes Forecast in my mileage range, Glamour truly was the best option.

Dave's had a subscription to Scientific American that he did not subscribe to for the past year as well.  When I brought this up last week in passing, his mom told us that it was a gift from his grandma.  Proper mystery solved!

Oh, and I've been getting Teen Vogue for free too!  I swear I did NOT voluntarily subscribe to that one.

Dave is playing Limbo now and it's totes scary.



Time to win the $312M Mega Millions.  See you on the flip side.

I Only Want To Be In Your Record Collection

Things I've been up to lately:

- Traipsing through slush

- Adding all of my music from my iPod to my new Macbook (this includes manually re-adding to/reordering ALL of my playlists)

- Hula hooping (well, sometimes)

- Going to an InterNations mixer and not mixing outside of my friends

- Playing guitar on hard on Rock Band (only took my three years)

- Cleaning out my inbox

- Stuffing my face with Peanut Butter Puffins

- Reading "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo"

- Updating my to-do list

- Eating Korean food

- Debating if I like Korean food

- Sorting through all of my CDs and finally trashing the ones I don't need (why do I have Nappy Roots and The American Pie soundtrack again??)

Check out some fab CDs and some stinkers here (I had to document the mess):

Why yes, Interpol and Moby did sign those for me 

And yes, that is a Backstreet Boys CD

Can you guess what the CD with the germs on the cover is?

I flipped this one upside down just to freak you out

On my last day of work I had to give back some company-owned things.  As sad as that was, I was relieved to give back my crackberry.

Now in the hands of the authorities

Bye bye empty desk

I've been trying to make the most of my time off.  I've therefore gone to see Late Night With Jimmy Fallon - guests were Dana Carvey, Minka Kelly, Ricky Martin, and Yngwie Malmsteen playing with The Roots.  I also went to a taping of Live! with Regis and Kelly (not that exciting, I'm obligated to include the ! in the name) - guests included a pre-taped Matthew Perry which was NOT okay, and Chris Colfer from Glee.  Kelly and Reg talked to my friend Jon about his Cookie Monster iPhone cover, so that was cool.  I also took the online test for Jeopardy! (not that exciting, I'm obligated to include the ! in the name.)  That test was horrific and the questions are not at all like what you see on TV.  If I'm lucky I maybe got 5 out of 50 questions right, so you won't be seeing me on that show anytime soon (or ever.) I just applied for tickets to The People's Court and Rachel Ray.  Is Cash Cab truly random or can you actually apply to be on it?

Recent clothing purchases include two bridesmaid dresses, stretchy pants from Express (I like to call them lazy pants) and pink and white baseball socks from American Apparel (let's just be honest here - that's the only thing I can fit in at that store.)  Oh!  We FINALLY bought a flat screen TV as you can partially see in the CD photos above, as well as a cordless iron and towels because that's what married people do.  Our final purchase was renters insurance so don't even think about breaking in here to take our awesome iron.

Another recent key purchase were cherries at a bargain price of $1.99/pound.  I have made a mental note to add this to my "Justifications for Living in Astoria" list.

This is my favorite video right now:

We recently went to the re-opened Museum of the Moving Image.  Yes, there really is a museum in Astoria, and it's in walking distance from our apartment.  The pics didn't come out so great though.

I got in trouble for taking this photo so I hope you like it

Model used in The Exorcist

Good Ole Yods

 Mrs. Doubtfire's head

Afterwards we went across the street for 5 Napkin Burger's slider happy hour.  $2 options include regular sliders, as well as veggie burger, turkey meatball, pork taquitos, and wings, plus $4 beers. Total yum.

The other day we walked from our apt to Roosevelt Island over this ghetto bridge made up of metal grates.  I do not recommend wearing heels on that.  

I also do not recommend going there on the windiest day of the year. We walked through the middle of the island (it looks like something out of 1984, a total Communist-type village), stopped for a bite to eat (yes, there really is a restaurant) and hightailed it out of there on the tram worried we had permanently lost feeling in our extremities.  

This is seriously what all the island's businesses look like, regardless if it's a florist, post office, or library.

The church, seriously

Have some tram views (after all it is the London Eye of New York)...

It's coming!

It's here!

Obligatory tourist photos

Bye bye RI

I am enjoying my freaky reflection photo

The ride was surprisingly steady

Second avenue here we come

Once we got to Manhattan, we didn't know what to do and it was freezing so we played in FAO Schwartz.  You can make muppets there!  I want to make one but they are like $100 bucks or something stupid like that.

Did you know that this muppet is a shrimp?!  I did not.  Pepe the prawn:

Also, I finished watching Mad Men season 4 OMGsogood.

More spare time activities included attending a focus group (love the cash in hand) and seeing Billy Elliot on Broadway.  I think something to add to my to-do list this week is creating a list of all the Broadway shows I've been to (I can tell you off the bat that my all-time favorites are Blood Brothers and Tommy.)

I've also been seeing friends who had babies, friends who bought houses, and friends who are teachers that are off from school this week.  Speaking of, how cute is Heather's slow cooker all buckled up ready for the Super Bowl?  Speaking of which, Dave won the half time in the pool.

I think I'm going to start a Tumblr of randoms things buckled up since I already have these in my library:

Check out my bootiful Valentine's Day fleurs:

So, using the Sitemeter at the bottom of my blog, sometimes I'm able to tell how someone landed on my page.  Also, using another new-ish tool that Blogger has implemented, I can also now tell which posts of mine get the most hits, and similar stats.  The page that's consistently been hit the most over the past few years has bee this one: Come To Jamaica and Feel Alright.  I knew it couldn't have been the fascinating photos of us eating New England cuisine, or my amazing rendition of "Train in Vain" that kept drawing people in.  Turns out that the hits all come from people clicking on the second photo (which I will not re-post here) which leads them directly to that blog post.  I thought I was in some major photograph-rights violation this whole time, but it only occurred to me to today to see the rank of where the photo pops up when searching for "Jamaica, Queens" in Google Images.  Well, mystery solved indeed.  Why don't you Google image this yourself and see where the photo placement is?  And also, how did this photo get linked solely to my blog??